


Specter

by JazzRaft



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Gen, Minor Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2020-03-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:54:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23121316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: Three times Nyx Ulric encountered General Glauca, and the one time Drautos pretended to be him.
Relationships: Titus Drautos | Glauca & Nyx Ulric
Comments: 10
Kudos: 16





	Specter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [astralluna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/astralluna/gifts).



> Written by request for astralluna-xx on tumblr!

The first time Nyx ever saw General Glauca, he thought that he must have dreamt it.

He feared that his nightmares were starting to bleed into his memory. That the midnight illusions which kept him awake at night were slowly starting to invade the one sanctuary of his mind that he held most sacred. That the twisted figure he remembered looming in the fires of the battlefield had never really been there at all, and instead he’d conjured up some fresh new horror to fill in the horizon of an already forsaken landscape.

Maybe his head was more screwed up than he’d been afraid it was. And wouldn’t that just be the final nail in the coffin? When his mind was the only thing left that he could trust, it ended up betraying him in the end, too.

Why did it have to go and do that? From what did it create that monstrous, metal visage? He could already imagine how the military psychologist would try and dissect it. How this creature was a symbol he’d built from the magitek wreckage of his trauma. How he’d invented a singular force to represent the entirety of the Niflheim Empire, melting down every piece of that industrial colossus he’d ever faced, and tempering it into one nemesis.

One he could meet at eye level, which could wield a sword to clash with his own. One he could actually face and fight, flesh to steel.

Nyx wasn’t the first to invent a more manageable enemy in the place of one too vast to defeat. He felt like an idiot, combing the web at three in the morning with the sweat of his night terrors cooling across his skin. But he needed to know that he wasn’t alone – and he couldn’t afford the therapy to assure him of that at the moment. Nevertheless, his treasure hunts through medical websites and mental illness confessionals didn’t end up comforting him.

No, he wasn’t alone. But if his only solution was to learn to live with this thing in his head, he rather wished that he was.

\---

The next time Nyx saw General Glauca, he was afraid that everyone in the room could tell that he was going crazy. Because it was kind of hard to hide how unnerved he felt staring at his creature, manifested on the TV screen for all to see.

“I’ve heard about this guy,” Pelna was saying, fork momentarily stilled over his cafeteria gruel. “Word from the west is that he’s been heading the Nifs for a while now. It’s just that no one’s been able to catch him on film.”

“He’s just another Nif asshole, Pel,” Crowe said, barely sparing the grim-faced reporter on the feed a single glance. “Not like he’s a crypto or whatever it is you call it.”

“A _cryptid_ ,” Pelna corrected. “And no, you’re right, he’s definitely not that. The amount of casualties he leaves behind? I really wish he was only a myth.”

This was the first that Insomnia had seen the magitek helm of this mysterious new player, caught in a broken static film feed from some news crew scavenging the battlefield. But Pelna picked up on things long before the Lucian news circuit could speculate. Rumors and whispers coded beneath hijacked radio waves fed into the antennas of his gadgets and gizmos for him to pick through like a scrap yard. Discarded treasures among the detritus of society for him to take out, polish, and pass on.

He would never know how much Nyx desperately valued that at the moment. Pelna’s word proved to him that this General Glauca really did exist, and he’d existed long before Nyx could have made him up in his head to fill a TV screen. He really had seen that face in the smoke, stalking the distant lines of troopers as the Kinsglaive made their retreat. It wasn’t a monster of his own making, marching across some war-torn wasteland on the news report now. It was just another one of the Empire’s daemons.

He knew that he shouldn’t, but Nyx did find more comfort in that than he did in fearing Glauca as a figment of his own imagination. The industrious cruelty of Imperial scientists, Nyx understood far better. As it turned out, he really did have a tangible enemy he could fight. There really was a head atop the Niflheim army that he could aim his kukris at to cut off.

Knowing that, helped him to sleep much better.

\---

When he finally crossed swords with General Glauca, he was relieved.

It wasn’t long – just a glance of steel to deflect a blow meant for someone else – but it was enough to drive any lingering doubt from Nyx’s mind, and solidify Glauca firmly in the realm of reality.

The weight of a sword nearly splitting his dagger in half didn’t leave much room for argument. The ache in his arms afterwards certainly felt real enough. Bracing all of his weight behind his weapon to give his comrade time to escape took more strength than Nyx knew his body could give. The armored juggernaut bore down on him so hard, Nyx feared the earth might cave beneath his feet. Maybe there wasn’t a man behind the mask like they’d all assumed after all. Because all Nyx felt was the weight of metal, so heavy against his blade that he shuddered to think of how a human being could bear that suit of armor upon their shoulders.

But it was the avarice in his metallic, hollowed out voice that proved to Nyx he wasn’t wholly a machine. Strings of code couldn’t simulate the venom behind his words. “Another of the king’s _pets_ ,” he spat at Nyx. Niflheim engineers were geniuses – insane, yet genius – but he didn’t believe they could program that much hatred into magitek.

“What can I say?” Nyx mocked back, smirking through the sweaty strain of keeping his blade at bay. “I’m cute and cuddly.”

Glauca snarled in disgust, another typically human response to Nyx’s brilliant sense of humor. Glauca cleaved down the short length of Nyx’s dagger and broke the lock in a shower of sparks. Just as he was ready to swing forward again, Nyx warp-jumped backwards, out of reach of a killing blow. He didn’t have time to antagonize the general further that day. He had to cover his wounded comrades and beat another hasty retreat. Abandoning the battlefield to the Empire’s conquest always left a sour feeling in his gut, but for now, he reconciled it with the safety of his brothers in arms.

Maybe it was wrong that Nyx didn’t feel quite as shaken by the encounter as the rest of the glaive after they’d fled home. The guy he’d saved was certainly disturbed enough. But the relief Nyx felt in the back of the trucks that day had nothing to do with surviving the ordeal. He was happier to prove to himself that General Glauca was real, and more than that, he was a man beneath that metal mask. Try as he may to hide behind the façade, he was just like the rest of them.

Nevertheless, Nyx did wonder. The mages had covered their escape, warping Glauca behind the fractal barrier magic barring him from the chase. The magitek helm rippled, and though Nyx knew it was only an effect of the crystalline magic’s light, it sent a chill down his spine. Because it almost looked like that awful artificial mask was smiling, not the man inside.

\---

“Your head’s not in it today, Ulric.”

Nyx rolled his eyes before turning around. Though the look on Drautos’ face suggested he saw that anyway. It felt like he could see straight through the back of his head sometimes. The first thing on the tip of Nyx’s tongue was a crack about the commander’s uncanny observation skills, but he bit it back and recited the same tired diatribe he’d made himself practice before.

“I’ll do better, sir.”

It was never enough to satisfy him, but Nyx never knew what else to say that wasn’t blatantly insubordinate. His actions on the field already did enough of that for him.

“You don’t have to do better,” Drautos told him. “You just have to focus.”

Nyx shook his head and set his eyes forward. His opponent right now was Commander Drautos, not General Glauca. The man had been on much of the Glaive’s mind as intelligence reports increased his appearance on the battlefronts. Many had lost friends to that heavy blade, more and more each day they deployed. Nyx was starting to think it had been a fluke he’d survived his clash with the general. And if that was the case, Drautos was right. He needed to focus, stay sharp, get stronger every day for the next time they crossed swords.

Drautos advanced with an overhead strike, the clang of the training swords colliding bouncing around the room like a rogue bullet. Nyx had requested the commander specifically for sparring today. He was taller than Nyx, broader than Nyx, and much more experienced than Nyx – though he’d never tell him that to his face. He wasn’t made of metal or full of that feral wrath, but he was around the same size, at least, as Glauca. And if Nyx was good at anything, it was using his enemy’s size against them.

If he could learn to topple Drautos’ height and manipulate the momentum of his weight, maybe he could use it to his advantage with Glauca. The weight of his sword strikes were similar enough, but more manageable without the armor. That much, he couldn’t really recreate. But the accuracy of the commander’s strikes, the brutality of their force, that much was the same.

“Better,” Drautos stated at the end of the bout. “You might stand a chance. Still, let’s hope it doesn’t come to you crossing swords with Glauca again.”

“Your confidence is overwhelming. Sir.”

“You’re a smartass, Ulric. But you’re a good soldier.” He looked like he wanted to say something else, but his mouth pressed into a line and he held it back.

“I’ll take the compliment, sir,” Nyx said, helpfully.

Drautos just gave him a brusque nod, then stalked off to his next grim-faced duty. Nyx plopped down on the sands and nursed the aches in his arms until he felt strong enough to get back on his feet. He felt about as sore as the last time he’d faced Glauca. His hands tingled with the metallic echo of the blows they’d come to. Clearly, Drautos was going to be good practice. For the sake of his training, he might as well have been the same man.

That much, Nyx knew for sure, was all in his head.


End file.
